Brian Stelter on using Twitter to lose weight

Brian Stelter in his TV Newser days (left), and as a NYT reporter

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter talked to WGBH radio on Friday about using Twitter to lose weight. Some excerpts:

“I looked around at myself in early 2010, realized I had to lose weight — didn’t know how much — but had to lose a lot of weight. So I set a goal of 25 pounds at first …Eventually the goal became 50 pounds, then it became 75 pounds and I finished out around 90 pounds.”

“I did feel I was revealing an awful lot [by tweeting every meal] but I felt like I had to, because I felt I couldn’t accomplish the weight loss without doing it publicly. I had tried in the past — in very slight ways, without a real goal — to eat better and I would fail every time because no one around me knew I was trying. This time, by having it on Twitter, both my friends and family — as well as strangers — would hold me accountable. So if I did screw up and if I did have too many cookies, I’d hear about it from people on Twitter, and I needed that constant reinforcement because you really are fighting against both yourself and also society when you’re trying to lose weight, and I needed that reinforcement all the time.”

“I’m back trying [to lose weight] again. …I lost 90 pounds over the six to eight months that I was doing it, then slowly started putting it back on. I put back on about 20 pounds in the 12 months after, and I looked around and thought, I’ve got to go back to Twitter and post my calories again. By doing that, it made me think about what I was eating.”